Your Name and Title: Dr. Lesley Farmer, Professor of Librarianship

Library, School, or Organization Name: California State University Long Beach

Co-Presenter Name(s):

Area of the World from Which You Will Present: California, USA

Language in Which You Will Present: English

Target Audience(s): school librarianship

Short Session Description (one line): Turning digital safety into digital contributions

Full Session Description (as long as you would like):

            The ethical use of technology has become a major issue, particularly in a global society. Digital Citizenship education is a timely and much-needed response to state and federal mandates (e.g., federal Broadband Data Improvement Act mandated training, California AB 207 required district technology plan, California ICT Digital Literacy initiative) as well as professional standards such as  The 2008 ISTE national education technology standards for teachers and the 2007 American Association of School Librarians Standards for the 21^st Century Learner.

            The overarching goal is effective and responsible personal and social engagement with digital resources. While some of the motive is protection and safety, which has resulted in required filtering software and acceptable use policies, a more positive spin is the need for individuals to learn coping skills and demonstrate that they can contribute meaningful knowledge to the digital society.

Librarians are well positioned to teach all clientele about how to access and process information in myriad forms as they work closely with users to address professional and community issues. Librarians have been the intellectual property and cyber conscience for years, and they have tried to address these issues positively by modeling and collaborating with others creatively to gather ideas, apply content, and generate new knowledge rather than just copy old knowledge.

            In 2010 a K-12 curriculum was developed, which includes lesson/learning activities for the educational community, and is applicable to other constituents. These activities translate responsible digital literacy into concrete actions. Digital citizenship is approached from four perspectives:

• safety (e.g., cyberbullying, “don’t talk to strangers”),
• responsible use (e.g., avoiding piracy, citing sources, computer care),
• critical thinking (e.g., web evaluation, research strategies),
• and civic engagement using technology (e.g., creating a wiki about recycling, creating podcasts on racial tolerance).

            The e-learning activities’ structure and format are discussed, and suggestions for its implementation are shared. The emphasis is on civic engagement and contributions to society via technology. International initiatives are also mentioned.

Websites / URLs Associated with Your Session: http://k12digitalcitizenship.wikispaces.com